Fidget Spinner is a new game by Android game developer, Words Mobile, that has within less than 30 days reached over 5 million downloads. Launched on May 16th, Fidget Spinner reached #1 in Top Free Arcade Games within 13 days, #1 Top Free Games within 18 days, and had reached #3 Top Free Overall within 20 days. Words Mobile is a pioneer in the android game development space, and has been developing games since 2010. While there's little info to be found on the game developer's location, team, or mission, it's clear that when there's a social topic trending like Fidget Spinners, a free game is able to ride the meteoric rise in app rankings through shiny graphics, addictive feature, and social trend hype. The caveat of social trends are that they quickly fade, and keyword's relevance can shift hundreds of ranks within days, up or down. The strategy here is to immediately transition the user to another game that 1. Users stay longer with, 2. Users spend more money, and 3. Users encourage their friends to play. For a game with 5 million users at 2% conversion rate, that's 100,000 users that monetize better than if they stayed on the initial game they downloaded. The longer the users are retained, the more likely they will play other games of the same developer as opposed to visiting other app store games. The actual gameplay of Fidget Spinner operates as an incremental game, otherwise known as idle games, clicker games, or clicking games whose gameplay consists of players performing simple actions repeatedly in order to gain currency. Being along the same lines as Cookie Clicker, AdVenture Capitalist, or Clicker Heroes, Fidget Spinner's gameplay/main feature at it's core is the swipe to spin action times a million. Its auxiliary features include:
Its product features include:
Its polish features include:
References:
[1] http://www.appbrain.com/app/fidget-spinner/myandroid.fphoenix.fastspinner [2] https://www.appbrain.com/dev/Words+Mobile/ [3]https://sensortower.com/android/us/words-mobile/app/fidget-spinner/myandroid.fphoenix.fastspinner/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_game [5] http://www.words-mobile.com/ [6] http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/276329/Interactive_ads_The_future_of_making_money_on_mobile_games.php When our team was challenged by the lack of a digital task center, we tried a few project management tools. First we went to Trello, where we liked the layout and tab design, but in reality the tabs and department tasks got complicated very quickly. Then we tried Wunderlist, but that required too much integration and set-up then the team wanted to invest. Eventually, we reached a project management tool that really spoke to the craziness of small/medium sized teams through a handful of features. Basecamp is a new solution for team-based project management that organizes all your team members and their creations in one place. With major features such as the Message Board, To-Do List, and Docs & Files, Basecamp is the central organization for all public team information. Understanding the features is simple, and some of them, like the automatic check-ins or docs & files functionality allows you to host more critical project information on Basecamp than other services can. Using the features of Basecamp is straightforward so I won't get into that, but as you can see in the photos above, there are many ways to use the biggest feature, the Message Board. Whether it's a team announcement, meeting notes, survey link, portfolio showcase, or music listening, every type of file is accessible through the Message Board. How you decide to use Basecamp is up to you, with a plethora of resources available to facilitate the communication between small teams. - JS For indie developers, finding the right places to publish your game can be challenging. To maximize your impact, knowing the typical pricing for games, publisher cuts, and how to get your game featured on the front page can be critical to your game's success. For this article, I've selected 5 of the best free websites to publish your game and receive free advertising, feedback, and possibly a stream of revenue! Here's a cat gif to tour you through the land of selling games!
Publishing Firewall on Steam Greenlight has been a fantastic experience, so I'm recording my findings for the world to see. If you don't already know, Steam Greenlight is one of the biggest publishing platforms for PC games online, with over 75% of online PC video game downloads occurring through this platform(Wikipedia, 2016). Steam Greenlight is like a popularity contest for games, that gives each game submitted around ~1,000 organic views and the option for users to vote for games to be included on the Steam store. Every month, the top games are selected to be published commercially.
Here are the necessary materials to publish your game:
27,000 Attendees, 400 conference associates. The sheer efficiency and energy that permeates from the team I joined last week is unmatched at any other convention I've volunteered for. Working as a conference associate, I met some of the brightest and most passionate people I know in the games industry. Making it to every shift on time while attending the panels and meeting new people everyday was hard, and it was likely one of the best professional and personal experiences of my life. Everything from working as a coffee attendant for exhibitors to assisting Riot Games, Blizzard Entertainment, and emmy award winning Don Daglow with their panels at GDC was so rewarding. This opportunity working as a CA also gave me extremely valuable portfolio/resume reviews with other CAs employed at ArenaNet, Epic Games, and Trion Worlds. Not to mention I was granted a meeting with Head of Communications at Riot Games, and was able to get an in-person understanding of qualities that companies are looking for in applicants. ALSO THIS HAPPENED: 80's Jonah is a bit too radical for 2016 Jonah.
Itch.io - 394 Views, $108, 80 downloads
IndieDB - 45 Views Roast My Game - 137 Views Kongregate - 59 Views, 59 plays Total: 635 Views, 139 Plays, and $108 from Nov. 21st to March 11th. 3 Months and 19 Days. The sum of my personal work as the first marketing project. While I didn't reach the 1,000 views mark in time, I now know many more PC game publishing platforms, such as Itch.io, Kongregate, Roast My Game, and Indie Game Stand. Knowing this, our team can distribute future games easily with accessibility and a feedback focus in mind. With Steam Greenlight, we can now submit all game prototypes to a community of gamers and receive more feedback to begin iteration upon a successful title. Final Score: 75% Adaptive Score: 89% - JS The past week has been highly eventful, and while many mistakes and failures have been made, growth is at an all-time high. But for every evaluated performance, there are two grades: The first is the actual performance, and the 2nd is the adaptive learning that has taken place as a result of the performance. On average, last week actual performance has been about a C-, and adaptive performance has been about a B+. Here are the failures:
This learning experience has been valuable because of
- JS When you want to improve fast, wager against yourself. This week I challenged myself to get 1,000 views and 100 downloads on our company's first games, Sloth Action, by March 12th. When we started(2/12/16), the game had 300 views, 50 downloads, and $25 in revenue on Itch.io.
After the first week(2/18/16), we now have
This was attainable by publishing Sloth Action on Kongregate, Roast My Game, and IndieDB. Also after intense hours of sales on Facebook. The views are a challenge, but there's a few things I'll do to ensure the success of this wager.
Thanks for reading! Once these personal goals are finished, I'll start writing on a 5 part guide to indie game marketing! These will be one-hit wonders prepared over the course of 3-5 weeks, so it's a great go-to guide for college students/indie devs to learn everything they need. Timeshock Games Weekly AnalysisTimeshock Games is taking a production hiatus for some R&D, teaching, and culture-building. Has any great company been built by asking people to work harder? Never. It all starts with building the most comfortable atmosphere for creativity to thrive. We're halting development on Unshattered, a glass-centric survival exploration game, to focus on what matters most: Our people.
Exciting things have happened as a result!
Things feel so much smoother because we're focusing on people instead of the product. Should it always be this way? |
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